Pope Francis establishes the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time as the Sunday of the Word of God. This day is intended to celebrate, study, and spread the Word of God. It responds to requests from Christians to renew their commitment and understanding of God's dialogue with his people. On this Sunday, the Pope will celebrate Mass and distribute Bibles to various representatives to ensure everyone is entrusted with God's Word.

1. 2020

2. By a papal decree - the third Sunday in
Ordinary Time, January 26 this year, is
to be observed as a special day
devoted to “the celebration, study and
dissemination of the Word of God”.
Pope establishes Sunday of the Word of God

3. By establishing this
Day, the Pope
intended "to respond
to the many requests
that have come from
the people of God,
so that throughout the
Church the Sunday of
the Word of God may
be celebrated in unity
of purpose”.

4. The occasion offers Christians an
opportunity to renew
their commitment and
understanding of “the inexhaustible
richness that comes from God's
constant dialogue with his people.”

5. The 2008 Synod on the
Word of God aimed to
increase and enhance the
knowledge, diffusion,
reflection and study of
the Sacred Scripture.

6. A series of projects and programmes have
been launched across the globe since that
Synod, to learn to pray with the Bible and to
make the Word accessible in different
languages and formats.
•

7. "Aperuit illis"
Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter, Motu
proprio "Aperuit illis", published on 30
September 2019, establishes that "the
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be
devoted to the celebration, study and
dissemination of the word of God".

8. The title of the
document, “Aperuit illis”,
is important. They are
its opening words, taken
from St Luke’s Gospel
where the Evangelist
describes how the Risen
Jesus appeared to His
disciples, and how
“He opened their minds to
understand the
Scriptures”.

9. The Christian faith is
not a “religion of the
book”: Christianity is
the “religion of the
word of God”, not of
“a written and mute
word, but of the
incarnate and living
Word”

10. The Pope concludes his Apostolic Letter by
defining what he describes as “the great
challenge before us in life:
to listen to Sacred Scripture and then to
practice mercy”.
“God’s Word”, writes Pope Francis, “has the
power to open our eyes and to enable us to
renounce a stifling and barren
individualism and instead to embark on a
new path of sharing and solidarity”.

11. Also the timing of the document is significant: 30th
September is the Feast of Saint Jerome, the man who
translated most of the Bible into Latin.
This year 2020 also marks 1600 years since the
death of St. Jerome. He famously said: "Ignorance of
Scripture is ignorance of Christ".

12. The Letter closes
with a reference
to Our Lady, who
accompanies us
"on the journey
of welcoming the
Word of God",
teaching us the
joy of those who
listen to that
Word – and keep
it.

13. The Bible is for all
The Bible is not meant for
a privileged few.
It belongs “to those called to hear
its message and to recognize themselves in
its words”.
The Bible cannot be monopolized or
restricted to select groups either, the Pope
writes, because it is “the book of the Lord’s
people, who, in listening to it, move from
dispersion and division towards unity”.

14. The importance of the homily
“Pastors are primarily responsible for explaining
Sacred Scripture and helping everyone to
understand it”, writes Pope Francis.
Which is why the homily possesses “a quasi-
sacramental character”.
The Pope warns against improvising or giving “long,
pedantic homilies or wandering off into unrelated
topics”.

15. Sacred Scripture and the Sacraments
• The Pope uses the scene of the Risen Lord
appearing to the disciples at Emmaus to
demonstrate what he calls “the unbreakable
bond between Sacred Scripture and the
Eucharist”. Since the Scriptures everywhere
speak of Christ, he writes, “they enable us to
believe that His death and resurrection are
not myth but history, and are central to the
faith of His disciples”.

16. • When the sacraments are introduced and
illumined by God’s Word, explains the Pope,
“they become ever more clearly the goal of a
process whereby Christ opens our minds and
hearts to acknowledge His saving work”.

17. The role of the Holy Spirit
• “The role of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures is
primordial”, writes Pope Francis.
“Without the work of the Spirit, there would always be a
risk of remaining limited to the written text alone”.
“This would open the way to a fundamentalist reading,
which needs to be avoided, lest we betray the inspired,
dynamic and spiritual character of the sacred text”.
It is the Holy Spirit who “makes Sacred Scripture the
living word of God, experienced and handed down in the
faith of His holy people”.

18. Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Mass on Sunday of
the Word of God, and at the beginning of the Liturgy
“there will be the solemn enthronement of the
Lectionary that was used in all the sessions of the
Second Vatican Council.”

19. At the conclusion of that Eucharistic celebration, in a
symbolic gesture the Pope will give a Bible each to
40 people representing “different expressions” of our
daily life:
from the bishop to the foreigner,
from the priest to the catechist,
from the consecrated person to the policeman,
from the Ambassadors of various continents to
teachers of all grades,
from the poor to journalists,
from the ‘Gendarme’ to the prisoner serving a life
sentence”.

20. A representative of the Orthodox Churches
and of Evangelical Communities will also
receive a Bible from the Pope.
Pope Francis wants to make sure everyone is
entrusted with the Word of God:
“This Sunday, he wants to stimulate all
Christians not just to place the Bible on the
shelf as one of many books, perhaps filled
with dust, but as an instrument that awakens
our faith.”

21. Pope Francis invites local communities
to find ways to “mark this Sunday with
a certain solemnity”.
He suggest that the sacred text be
enthroned “in order to focus the
attention of the assembly on the
normative value of God’s Word”.
In highlighting the proclamation of the
Word of the Lord, it would be
appropriate “to emphasize in the homily
the honour that it is due”

22. Pope Francis invites
us never to take
God’s Word for
granted, “but instead
to let ourselves be
nourished by it, in
order to
acknowledge and live
fully our relationship
with Him and with
our brothers and
sisters”.